


Knife in My Soul

by Swiftlet (SphinxTheRiddle)



Series: Taibreah Lavellan [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fade Shenanigans, Post-Trespasser, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 10:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4825259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SphinxTheRiddle/pseuds/Swiftlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scorned and raging, Taibreah Lavellan has avoided her erstwhile lover since stopping the Qunari invasion.</p>
<p>Until now, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knife in My Soul

**Author's Note:**

> FIrst post on AO3, so hello all! I am unrepentant Solavellan trash, and this small bit was inspired when a friend of mine asked me this: **What would your Lavellan say to Solas the first time she saw him in her dreams after the end of Trespasser?**
> 
> After sobbing dramatically over my OTP, I had this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I (somehow morbidly) enjoyed writing it. ConCrit is welcomed, too, all things considered. And if you'd like to see more of Tai, by all means, let me know.
> 
>  
> 
> **tw: brief suicidal ideation at the beginning (first five paragraphs)**

The first sensation Taibreah could discern was the chill in the air. The faintest scent of ozone threatened a coming storm and sent waves of electric discharge running through her fingers. Squeezing her hands against the tingling, she shuddered at the prospect of thundersnow. Only the most formidable winter storms came in hand with lightning; she’d lived through one before, and once was enough.

At that thought, she opened her eyes, blinking slowly to accommodate the lowlight of the catacomb she found herself in. It was dark and dank, yet somehow, she’d never felt safer than she did now, watching water trail the icy stalactites above her. Perhaps, if she lay in there long enough, they would impale her.

As if in answer, the fat spear jutting down above her gave a dangerous quake. The sound of crackled ice echoed along the high ceiling of the cave, fissures dancing along the deep blue of the ice like spidersilk. She stared numbly back, the usual sheen of her eyes dull as rust.

_How much could it hurt?_ she wondered. Numb from the chill within and without, would she even feel the pain of impalement? She imagined the crunch of bone beneath the weight of pure calcified ice, a gout of blood running through rich brown fingers. The blood would be warm—steaming hot in the subzero temperature of the catacombs. Perhaps it would be hot enough to bring life back to her hands. Perhaps the warmth soaking into her clothes would rouse her frozen body, shooting lances of pain out from her gut.

Perhaps she didn’t care.

_Jagged teeth of betrayal nipping, gnawing, tearing like wolves upon a carcass. Easier to be angry, easier to slip the noose of rage around the neck while the heart lies mangled on the floor._

Taibreah shot up at the sound of another’s voice, wincing at the stiffness in her back. “Cole?” she called, knowing him anywhere.

_Yes._ The whispers floated around her. _I am sorry. I know you did not want to be found, but it’s…louder here. You are louder. I cannot avoid you._

“Louder here…” she murmured, understanding sinking in. The Fade. She was in the Fade. Dreaming, she realized, and not a pleasant dream. But then, her dreams were rarely pleasant anymore.

_He doesn’t mean to steal your rest._

All at once, the snarl she so carefully hid away erupted on her face. She growled like the wounded animal she was, feeling the pull of old scars along her cheekbones—a brand which no longer existed, except for in the place she was most vulnerable. She spat a curse to the Craftsmaster she’d once so loved in the same breath as she damned herself for not having more control. _The Fade can make everything raw if you are not careful, da’len,_ she could remember Keeper Deshanna telling her. _Remember to breathe._

But Taibreah had not known how to breathe in very long time.

“Cole,” she barked, “if you know I don’t want to be bothered, then why are still here?”

The voice that responded was so forlorn, Taibreah could have wept. _You want to die…_

A drip of water on her nose reminded her of the stalactite she’d only just been contemplating. It occurred to her that the seemingly random rumble of breaking ice was the Fade reacting to her thoughts. An unnerving fact; she’d not understood until that moment how deeply she wanted to die. Yet even in the anxious twist of her stomach, something like longing filled up her chest, constricting her lungs. _It would be so simple._

Another crack shot through the lance.

_Please, don’t!_

“Leave me, Compassion,” she hissed. “Get out.”

Her gentle friend fell blessedly silent, though her senses were awakened enough now to know he’d not left her. Guilt would well up later, she knew, when she had time to think about how much her words would hurt Cole. She couldn’t bring herself to shrug off the behavior, even when he could easily make himself forget. Not when she knew he wouldn’t. Even though he was now fully a spirit, Taibreah knew there would always be a piece of herself in Cole – pieces of everyone from the Inquisition, in truth – that he would hold close to himself, warmed by the embers of friendships and memories that should not be displaced.

Not even when one wanted to do so.

With another wince, Taibreah rose steadily to her feet. The longer she remained still, the darker her thoughts would turn; she did not trust herself in this place. Breathing deeply, she compelled her staff into creation, leaning heavily against it as she began to walk. Now that she was moving, her feet knew the way to carry her—they had led her through the catacombs before.

_Haven,_ she thought. _It must always come back to Haven._

Solas once told her that the place would always be part of her. At the time, she’d been too preoccupied by the curve of his lips to read his tone—even then, he had been warning her; memory would be her cage, and time the lock. The thought of him as he once was, wise and kind and grinning at her breathlessness as he kissed her fiercely beneath the memory-shade of the Breach—she grit her teeth against the surge of wounded rage, her staff the only thing keeping her from collapsing to her knees. For it burned her, this love. Once she had reveled in it, dancing within each different flame. The slow burn of soft, intimate kisses upon her brow, her eyes, her cheeks, her lips when he cradled her beneath the stars. The molten inferno of hungry, desperate twists of the tongue when he could not stop himself, gripping her fiercely, possessively, like a lifeline in the dark.

A wretched feeling clawed at her throat as the Fade shifted around her, accommodating her tumultuous thoughts. The smell of ozone spiked, the storm raging at the mouth of the cave thundering at her approach, lightning arcing in the sky like a halo above the white. Leaving the catacombs now would be dangerous, even in the Fade. But Taibreah could not stand another moment of the rising claustrophobia, could not stand the slow, twisting inclination to turn back to her stalactites. She had lived this moment before; she would survive it again.

_A swell of rage to drown the grief, aching deeply in the bones. You don’t have to face the storm again, Taibreah._

She didn’t, she knew. Nor would she. All roads led to Haven. All roads led her back, if only she allowed herself to follow them.

The phantom chill of snow ran up her legs as she trudged ahead, a shade of memory to convince the mind it was real. She was ready for the subtle deceptions of the Fade, however, and in her mind she projected her resolve to form around her like a shell, hard and opaque. It did not completely banish the chill, but it was enough to boost her sense of self. She could feel Cole skirting around the edges of consciousness, worried, hovering, coaxing. She might have cursed him again if she did not love him so. She knew that he knew the road back; he knew where Haven would forever take her.

_I’m sorry. I want to help._

“I know,” she whispered back. “I know.”

Taibreah knew she was close when the world began to shift again. The howl of the wind eased until it was only the softest of breezes; the sky rumbled overhead, though the lightning remained behind the looming clouds, as if held back. Blinding white bled with shadowed colors, blooming before her into murky greens and smoky grays. Enshrouded in the gloaming, the aroma of pine and oak washed over her, conifers reaching feathered fingers into the sky above as soft green mosses and fallen leaves sifted below her feet. With unearthly ease, the blizzard birthed the wood, and for all she knew it to be her downfall, Taibreah felt the lightness of _home_ settling within her. The forest could have been anywhere she had been in her travels with her clan or with the Inquisition; exact location did not matter so much as what she knew she would find lurking within the shadows.

Cole’s was not the only presence she felt anymore. Something else emerged at the edges of perception, six-eyed and cunning, with padded feet rustling in the shadows. Two years ago, the beast’s pelt had been black as pitch, shots of white threatening to erupt from the starburst on its chest. But something had changed it – changed him – and now he glowed pearlescent in the moonlight. Much of the effect was her own fault—the Fade enjoyed heightening her senses, enhancing the world so that it appealed to her. Yet even had they been standing in the physical reality, Taibreah knew he would look a marvel.

The great white wolf shot ahead of her into the glen, perching high atop a granite overhang. _Always out of reach,_ she mused. He was forever out of reach.

Heart roaring in her ears, Tai padded trembling into the glen. She had never come so far before, not even when she’d eventually learned what sort of dreams these were. Anger had been her succor in the agony; she would have denied him the world if only spite him for a night. But the weight of memory chafed her too raw for anger to have its place anymore. Seeing her wish to die manifested so blatantly was enough to admit defeat.

Judging by the ancient sorrow brimming in her wolf’s eyes, he did not relish his victory in the least.

Words caught in her throat as she stared up at him, autumnal eyes bright with tears. She’d once thought she knew what she would say if he ever dared to show himself to her, but reality had a habit of mocking her expectations. Instead, she swallowed dryly, defiant even as she was a broken mess of mirror shards upon the floor.

_Ma sa’lath,_ she mourned. _Ma vhenan. Beloved, why must you haunt me like this?_

Though he could not hear her thoughts, Solas could still sense her emotions through the Fade. Pointed ears fell flat against his crown, his great white head bowing under the immense weight of what she felt. He could guess her thoughts easily. He had no answers—none that were worthy of her, none that he could part with. Though deep within him, he wished he did.

She wept openly at the display. How wretched they were; not for the first time, the unfairness struck her like a blow.

“You can’t even face me as yourself,” she finally said. “You hide behind Fen’Harel because it hurts too much to be Solas. Oh my love, you are the greatest fool I’ve ever known. Why do you do this? Why must it be this way?”

At his silence, the red-eyed remorse, she snapped. “Damn you, Solas. _Damn you._ I _love_ you, you stupid, stubborn fool. Am I so unworthy of a God’s affections that you can’t even offer me the truth? Do you hate me that much?”

It was a low blow, needling and poisoned from the moment the words left her lips. But she did not care – would not allow herself to care – because if pain was the only reaction she could have, then damn it, she would exact her price. Let him snarl if he would not say he loved her.

And snarl he did, a silent, dreadful flashing of fangs and fire as his form began to twist. She had the power to wound him deeper than anyone else, and her thorns sunk to his very marrow.

_Black and red, colors exploding, blood and bone cracking against the words: vhenan, ma vhenan._

Taibreah opened her mouth to counter Compassion’s musings, but was not fast enough.

“That is enough, Cole. Please, let it go.”

His voice sent a shiver curling down her spine. The cadence was as she remembered, a lilting prose to his speech that no modern elf could ever replicate. Mournful storm-blue eyes regarded her fiercely, and though it was ill won, she at least relished her victories.

“Solas.” It was enough to say his name.

“My love,” he whispered in reply. Names had power. Saying hers would be his undoing.

There they stood, man and woman, staring across worlds and ages within the blink of an eye. He would not say more; she could not find the words. He would not allow her to follow; she would rather he followed her. It was an impasse that she did not know how to surmount, even as her very blood sang out to hold him.

Finally, she choked, her head bowing low as tears ran hotly down her face.

There was only: “ _Mi’nas’sal’inan_.” A single phrase left to her heart. And Solas could only flinch at her whisper, his chest burning as if she’d branded him. Tears pricked behind his eyes. She might have reached out to him, but there was nothing left in Taibreah for the night.

“Cole,” she plead, “wake me up, please.”

_Yes._

And in the diffuse light of dawn, Taibreah heard the echo of a howl carry her forth from the Fade.

It would follow her every night. Until the day she changed the Dread Wolf’s heart.

**Author's Note:**

> On the Elvhen Language:
> 
> **ma sa’lath:** my one love
> 
> **ma vhenan:** my heart
> 
> **Mi’nas’sal’inan:** referring to a deep longing, or nostalgic longing for something that you miss terribly, have a deep attachment to, or know you will never get back: (I feel the knife once more within my soul.)


End file.
